'Beacon of human rights' fails its own children

A New York Times report recently found that child labor is still a grave problem in the United States. According to the US Department of Labor, a total of 835 enterprises in the country illegally hired over 3,800 child laborers in the 2022 financial year, over 1,000 more than in 2021.

Data from US organizations estimate that there are between 500,000 and 800,000 child workers in the US, with almost all the major US brands involved. The New York Times even reported that some child laborers work in dangerous places such as meat plants, where they may suffer serious injury.

Child labor in the US has a history as long as that of the slave trade and racial discrimination, and its mines, tobacco farms and textile plants have been exploiting child labor for over 100 years, which problem has much to do with loopholes in its legal system and lack of legal enforcement. For example, the laws in the US forbid those under 14 to work in most sectors but make agriculture an exception.

Worse, the highest civil penalty for hiring a child laborer is only $15,000, which can hardly be called a deterrent. Rather it is like a business cost.

Still worse, the problem of child labor is interwoven with poverty and racism in the US. According to Child International, more than 40 percent of children in the US spend at least one year in poverty before they reach the age of 18, while other organizations have found that 71 percent of US children living in poverty are colored. In 2022, the US government even refused to extend child tax incentives during the COVID-19 pandemic because the cost was too high, but the cost is only $100 billion a year, even less than US' military assistance to Ukraine. It seems the US government saves money that should be spent on its children to spend on weapons.

Child labor is only the tip of the iceberg of the US' violation of children's human rights. In the 19th century it built "schools" that forcibly separated hundreds of thousands of indigenous children from their parents, while its failure in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic caused over 200,000 children to become orphans. The US is the only UN member that has failed to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child, for which issue it has been criticized many times by international organizations.

There is really much that the US should do to protect the rights of children.

CHINA MEDIA GROUP